famous politicians

Margaret Thatcher, who died on April 8 at age 87, served as British Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990, and she was the first woman to ever hold that office. Her gender, though, wasn’t what made her stand out. Thatcher arguably was the toughest politician who ever occupied 10 Downing Street, so intractably hard-headed that she made another famously gruff Conservative Party leader, Winston Churchill, look almost like a softy by comparison. But while Thatcher didn’t have to confront Nazi Germany, as …

In the early 1990s I presented Margaret Thatcher with an award at a convention in Florida. We both wore navy-and-white polka-dot power suits. I only realized that Britain’s former prime minister and I were dressed alike moments before we were supposed to go onstage. I didn’t have time to rush back to my room in the massive Disney World hotel and change. Trying to make the best of it, I said, “Lady Thatcher, I admire you so much that I …